Chapter 8
Sentencing was two weeks later.
The judge didn’t hold back.
He called Vivian’s crimes “the most despicable, premeditated act of cruelty I have ever seen in this courtroom.”
He called her “a danger to society, a manipulator, and a monster hiding behind a pretty face.”
And then he handed down the sentence.
Life without the possibility of parole.
Plus an additional forty years for the assault charges, to run consecutively.
Vivian would die in prison.
There would be no appeals that mattered.
No early release for good behavior.
She would spend every remaining day of her life in a cell, just like she’d kept Elena.
It was poetic justice.
It was perfect.
As the guards led her away, Vivian didn’t fight this time.
She didn’t scream.
She just looked at Elena.
And for the first time… there was no hatred in her eyes.
Only emptiness.
Defeat.
She’d lost.
Completely and totally.
The doors closed behind her.
And this time…
No one was scared.
No one was waiting for her to come back.
She was gone.
Forever.
We left the courthouse to a sea of reporters.
But this time, they were on our side.
They cheered as we walked out.
They called Elena brave.
They called her a hero.
She smiled and waved, but she didn’t stop to talk.
She’d said everything she needed to say in that courtroom.
Now she just wanted to go home.
But home… home was still the mansion.
The place where it had all happened.
We hadn’t been back since that first night.
On the drive back to the penthouse, Elena was quiet.
She stared out the window at the city passing by.
“Ethan?” she said finally.
“Yes, baby?”
“What are we going to do about the house?”
I’d been thinking about the same thing.
“Sell it,” I said immediately.
“Burn it down, for all I care. We’ll buy something new. Somewhere with no memories of her. Somewhere that’s just ours.”
Elena was quiet for another minute.
Then she shook her head.
“No.”
“No?”
“No,” she said, turning to look at me.
“She doesn’t get to take that from me too. That’s my house. I helped pick out every tile. Every paint color. I planted the roses in the garden. I designed the kitchen. She lived there for three years, but it was never hers. It was always mine. And I want it back.”
I stared at her.
My brave, incredible wife.
“Are you sure?” I asked softly.
“Because if you want to sell it, we sell it. If you want to burn it to the ground, I’ll bring the matches. Whatever you need.”
“I’m sure,” she said.
“I want to go back. I want to walk through every room. I want to take down everything she put up. I want to repaint. Redecorate. Make it mine again. And then… then I want to live there. Happily. In her face. Even if she’s rotting in a cell somewhere, I want her to know that she lost. That I won. That I got my life back. And my house. And my husband.”
I kissed her.
Hard.
“Then that’s exactly what we’ll do.”
The next week, we went back to the mansion.
Marcus and his team had already been through it.
They’d removed every trace of Vivian they could find.
Her clothes.
Her furniture.
Her pictures.
All of it was gone, donated or thrown away.
But the house still felt like her.
Cold.
Empty.
Wrong.
We walked through the front door together.
The foyer was clean now.
No bucket.
No water.
No broken glass.
But I could still see it.
I could still see Elena on her knees.
I could still hear Vivian’s laugh.
Elena squeezed my hand.
“Come on,” she said.
And she led me through the house.
Room by room.
She told me what she wanted to change.
The wallpaper in the dining room—Vivian had picked it out. Gone.
The carpet in the master suite—stained with memories. Ripped up.
The guest room where Vivian had slept.
Elena stood in the middle of it and looked around.
“This is going to be the nursery,” she said quietly.
I froze.
“The nursery?”
She turned to me, her eyes shining.
“I talked to the doctor. The week before the trial. He said… he said even after everything, there’s no reason we can’t have a family. If we want to. If I’m ready.”
She took a step closer to me.
“And I am ready, Ethan. More than anything. I want our life to be about the future now. Not the past. I want babies. I want birthday parties and Christmas mornings and all the things she tried to take from me. I want to fill this house with so much love and laughter that there’s no room left for any of her bad memories.”
I pulled her into my arms.
I couldn’t speak.
I just held her, my heart so full it felt like it would burst.
A family.
Our family.
In the house we’d built together.
It was the most perfect thing I’d ever heard.
We spent the next three months renovating.
Every day, the house felt a little more like ours again.
Elena threw herself into the work.
She picked out new furniture.
New colors.
New art.
She planted new roses in the garden—red ones, her favorite.
She hired new staff, people we’d vetted ourselves, people who had no connection to Vivian or her family.
Mrs. Chen even came back.
She was retired now, but she wanted to be there.
To see the house come back to life.
To see Elena happy.
By the time we were done, you’d never know what had happened there.
The walls were bright.
The air was light.
The house felt like a home again.
And on the day we moved back in for good, Elena stood in the foyer, looked up at the grand staircase where Vivian had once stood so proud, and she smiled.
“Good riddance,” she said.
May you like
And then she turned to me.
“Now let’s make some new memories.”
